Saudi Arabia is sending about 100 dancers, singers and other performers to Ottawa later this month, just as Canada faces criticism over a controversial $15bn arms deal with Riyadh and questions about what, exactly, all this cultural pageantry is meant to cover up.
Culture on the Schedule, Weapons in the Background
The Saudi Cultural Days event is planned for 18-21 May, a four-day series of events meant to highlight the cultural traditions of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Cultural Days event is held annually in different countries around the world. It was held earlier this year in Indonesia, and in 2012, the event was hosted at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, where that edition included a photo exhibition, a fashion show featuring traditional Saudi dress, folk dancing, and a reception with culinary dishes from the Kingdom.
The event has not been held in Canada since 1991, according to a report in The Hill Times. Its return comes as Canadians are increasingly vocal in their opposition to the Saudi human rights record. That timing is what critics are staring at, not the choreography.
Cesar Jaramillo, head of anti-war group Project Ploughshares, said, “While there is nothing inherently wrong with efforts aimed at fostering intercultural understanding, the timing of this particular initiative is highly suspect.” He also said, “There's has been no Saudi cultural delegation in Canada for over a quarter century, and this one happens to visit in the midst of Canada’s highly controversial multi-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.”
The Arms Deal Beneath the Smiles
The $15bn arms deal brokered between Canada and Saudi Arabia has put Ottawa on the defensive after it was revealed that Canada’s foreign affairs minister personally signed off on export permits for light-armoured vehicles to be shipped to Riyadh. Ottawa has said it could not renege on the deal, which was brokered under the previous Conservative government, without hurting its reputation. It also said that if Canada does not sell Saudi Arabia the weapons, another country with less stringent safeguards will.
That is the familiar state logic in a clean suit: one government says it must keep its word, another says someone else will sell the weapons anyway, and ordinary people are left to absorb the consequences. The machinery keeps moving, and the paperwork gets called diplomacy.
In late April, a 70-person Canadian delegation, including representatives from the health, education, agriculture, defence and mining and manufacturing industries, travelled to Saudi Arabia on a trade mission. Ed Holder, a former Conservative MP who led the group, said, “If you want to be in [a] position to have a positive impact on any country . . . the best way to do that is through trade,” and, “It’s not going to be my place to tell the Saudis how to run their country.”
Friendship, Trade, and the Usual Silence
The Saudi embassy in Ottawa did not return repeated requests for comment. Shaza Fahim, an official at the embassy, told The Hill Times that the cultural event is meant to “highlight the friendship between Saudi Arabia and Canada”. Saudi Cultural Days are planned three years in advance, a statement emailed to the newspaper stated, and the events in Ottawa have “nothing to do with the sale of armoured vehicles,” it said.
In March, the Saudi embassy decried Canadian media coverage of the weapons deal as “sensationalised and politicised” and said it did not accept outside interference into its internal affairs. That line sits neatly beside the trade mission, the weapons permits, and the cultural delegation, all of it arranged by institutions that insist they are merely exchanging goods, values, and goodwill.
The case of jailed Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, whose wife and three children have sought refuge in Quebec, has also raised questions about what Canada is doing to pressure Saudi Arabia on its human rights record. Jaramillo said, “It takes little cynicism to see this as a blatant attempt to soften Canadian views on Saudi Arabia in the context of the arms deal,” and, “However, the Saudi human rights record is so abysmal that it cannot be whitewashed with dancers and cuisine.”
The performers may arrive with folk dancing, fashion shows and culinary dishes. The state relationship arrives with export permits, trade missions and a $15bn weapons deal. The rest is branding.